Resplendent

by Stephen Baxter

  Hex swallowed her shame. ‘I know that, sir. It was a judgement call to abort the self-destruct.’

  ‘Show me where you are.’

  Navigator Hella hastily downloaded positional data to the Commodore. The Spear of Orion had been smuggled through some kind of hyperspace jump out of its cage of Ghosts and brought to a position at the rim of the system, where only icy comets swam in the dark. They were far from the fighting which still raged in the inner system.

  Teel stared at the Ghost’s Virtual, which spun silently, complacently. ‘How did this creature bring you out here?’

  Jul answered, ‘We’re not sure, sir. We didn’t monitor any communication between it and any other Ghost. The Ghost, um, broke us out.’

  ‘I think we’re dealing with factions among the Ghosts, sir,’ Hex said. ‘Maybe there’s an opportunity here. That’s why I thought it best to pass it up the chain of command.’

  ‘And this Ghost wants you to kill one of its own.’

  ‘This Ghost has a name,’ the Ghost said. ‘Or at least a title.’

  ‘I’ve heard of this,’ Borno sneered. ‘Ghosts like titles. They are all ambassadors.’

  ‘I am no ambassador,’ the Ghost said. This is not an age for ambassadors. I am an Integumentary.’ The Spear’s systems displayed various alternative translations for ‘Integumentary’: prophylaxis, quarantine. ‘I am part of an agency that insulates humans from Ghosts, like the hide that shields my essence from the vacuum of space.’

  ‘Charming,’ Teel said. ‘But, fancy title or not, you are my mortal enemy. If you want us to do something for you, then you must give us something in return.’

  The Ghost spun, its flawless hide barely showing its rotation. ‘I expected nothing less. The one thing you wasteful bipeds relish even more than killing is trade. Bargaining, mutual deception—’

  Teel snapped, ‘If you expected it you have something to offer.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the Ghost. ‘If you succeed we will decommission the new weapon system.’

  ‘What new weapon?’

  ‘Directional gravity waves on a large scale.’

  The weapon that had churned up a planet. Hex held her breath.

  ‘Download some data,’ Teel said. ‘Prove you can do this. Then we’ll talk.’

  Hex watched, astonished, as the Spear’s systems began to accept data from the Ghost.

  Every human knew the story of the Silver Ghosts, and their war with humanity.

  For fifteen hundred years the Third Expansion of mankind had been spreading across the face of the Galaxy. First contact between humans and the alien kind they labelled ‘Silver Ghosts’ had come only a few centuries after the start of the Expansion. The Ghosts were silvered spheres, up to two metres across. Their hide was perfectly reflective - hence the human label ‘Silver Ghosts’; in starlight they were all but invisible.

  The key to the Ghosts was their past. The world of the Silver Ghosts was once Earthlike: blue skies, a yellow sun. But as the Ghosts climbed to awareness their sun evaporated, its substance torched away by a companion star. As their world froze the Ghosts rebuilt themselves. They became symbiotic creatures, each one a huddled cooperative collective. That spherical shape and silvered hide minimised heat loss.

  The death of the Ghosts’ sun was a betrayal by the universe itself, as they saw it. But that betrayal shaped them for ever. Their science was devoted to fixing the universe’s design flaws: they learned to tinker with the very laws of physics.

  When humans found the Ghosts, at first two powerful interstellar cultures cautiously engaged. But the Ghosts’ home range lay between mankind and the rich star fields of the Galaxy’s Core. The Ghosts were in humanity’s way. War was inevitable.

  After early quick victories, for centuries the Ghosts stalled the human advance at the Orion Line, an immense static front along the outer edge of the Sagittarius Arm. The Ghosts, capable of changing the laws of physics in pursuit of weapons technology, were a formidable foe; but humans were the more warlike.

  A weapon that could use g-waves to devastate worlds was a characteristic Ghost weapon, exotic and powerful. And it worked, the Integumentary said, by tapping into the large-scale properties of the universe itself.

  ‘Perhaps you understand that the universe has more dimensions than the macroscopic, the three spatial and one of time. Most of the extra dimensions are extremely small.’ A technical sidebar translated this for Hex as ‘Planck scale’. ‘But one extra dimension is rather larger, perhaps as much as a millimetre. You must think of the universe, then, as a blanket of spacetime, stretching thirteen billion years deep into the past and some twelve billion light years across—’

  ‘And a millimetre thick,’ said Hella.

  ‘There are believed to be many such universes, stacked up’ - the translator boxes hesitated, searching for a simile - ‘like leaves in a book. Also our own universe may be folded back on itself, creased in the thin dimension.’

  Engineer Jul said, ‘So what? We know about the extra dimensions. We use them when we hyperdrive.’

  ‘But,’ said the Ghost, ‘your applications are not currently on the scale of ours.’

  ‘Tell us about g-waves,’ Teel commanded.

  The Ghost said that all forms of energy were contained within the ‘blanket’ of the universe - all save one. Gravity waves could propagate in the extra dimensions, reaching out to the other universes believed to be stacked out there. The Ghosts had learned to focus the gravitational energy raining into their own universe from another.

  ‘The energy source in the other universe is necessarily large,’ the Integumentary said. ‘Alternatively it may be a remote part of our own universe, an energy-rich slice of spacetime - the instants after the initial singularity for instance, folded back. We aren’t sure. You understand that this weapon offers us a virtually unlimited source of power. It’s just a question of tapping it. Beyond weaponry, many large-scale projects become feasible.’

  Hella said, ‘I wonder what “large-scale” might mean for a species of universe-botherers like the Silver Ghosts.’

  Teel said, ‘Even when we were friendly with them the Ghosts scared us, I think.’

  Hex had had enough of awe. ‘Let’s talk about the target. This weapon system is in the control of the Black Ghost . . .’

  Recently the Ghosts had suddenly been scoring victories against the human forces. Their tactics had undergone a revolution that must reflect a change in their command structure, perhaps their very society.

  ‘Humans work in hierarchies,’ Teel said. ‘Chains of command. All large-scale military organisations in the past have done so. We tend to think it’s the only way to operate, but in fact it’s a very human way to work.’

  ‘An evolutionary legacy of your past,’ the Integumentary said. ‘When you were squabbling apes in some dismal forest, in thrall to the strongest male—’

  ‘Shut up,’ Teel said without emotion. ‘Ghosts, however, have always worked differently. Their organisation is more fluid, bottom-up, with distributed decision-making. The whole of their society is self-organising.’

  ‘Like a Coalescence,’ Borno said with disgust.

  ‘Like a hive, yes.’

  ‘The Ghosts are this way,’ said the Integumentary, ‘because of our evolutionary past. As you would understand if you knew anything about the species you are endeavouring to wipe out.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Teel said, ‘but you stayed that way because it’s efficient. Even in some military applications: if you’re waging a guerrilla war on an occupied world, for instance, a network of cells can be very effective. But in large-scale set-piece battles, which we always try to draw the Ghosts into, you need a command structure.’

  ‘And now they have one,’ Hex said.

  ‘Which makes them harder to beat. But it also makes them more vulnerable, because suddenly assassination is an effective weapon.’

  Hex, intrigued, asked, ‘Why would any Ghost commit this treason? If the Black Ghost ex
ists - if it lies behind these new effective tactics—’

  The Integumentary said, ‘The Black Ghost’s is the greater treason, because of where its project will inevitably lead.’

  Teel prompted, ‘Which is?’

  ‘To an arms race. Humans will steal or reinvent the gravity wave technology for themselves. Then we will conspire together, humans and Ghosts, to wreck the Galaxy between us. Or, worse—’

  ‘Ah,’ said Teel. ‘The Black Ghost will unleash such power that there won’t be anything left for the victors to take.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Borno said. ‘Ghosts are single-minded. They choose a plan and stick to it, whatever the cost.’

  In the training academies there was a joke about Ghosts that had the right of way to cross a road. But the transport drivers ignored the stop signs. So the first Ghost crossed, exerting its rights, and was creamed in the process. So did the second, the third, the fourth, each sticking to what it believed was right regardless of the cost. Then the fifth invented a teleport, changing physical law to make the road obsolete altogether . . .

  Teel said, ‘So you want the Black Ghost eliminated before it destroys everything. Even though this may be your best chance of winning the war and of avoiding the subjugation or even extinction that would follow.’

  ‘Sooner extinction than universal destruction,’ the Integumentary said.

  ‘How noble.’

  Hex said, ‘And you, Integumentary, are prepared to make the most profound moral judgements on behalf of your whole species - and their entire future?’

  Borno said, ‘Who cares about Ghost ethics? They won’t need ethics when they’re all dead.’

  ‘You’re deranged, gunner, but you’re right,’ said Teel. ‘We don’t need to consider Ghost consciences. Our job is to consider what use to make of this strange opportunity. Certainly we need to find out more about these new Ghost variants you’ve come up against. I’ll pass this up the line to—’

  ‘You decide now,’ the Ghost snapped.

  Borno said, ‘If you think a commodore is going to take orders from a ball of fat like you—’

  ‘Can it, gunner,’ Hex snapped.

  ‘You decide now,’ the Ghost said again. ‘You allow this crew, in this ship, to follow my instructions, or I disconnect the link.’

  Hella said, ‘I guess the Integumentary has its own pressures. Imagine trying to run a covert operation like this from our side.’

  ‘We’ll follow your orders, whatever you say, Commodore,’ Hex said.

  ‘I know you will,’ Teel said dismissively. ‘But I’ve no way of assessing your chances of success - let alone survival.’

  ‘Our survival is irrelevant, sir,’ Jul said.

  ‘I know that’s what you’re taught, engineer. Perhaps there are a few desk-bound Commissaries back on Earth who actually believe that. But out here we who do the fighting are still human. The mission has a greater chance of success if you’re willing to take it on.’

  ‘I’m willing,’ Borno said immediately.

  ‘I’ve seen your file, gunner. What about those of you who aren’t psychopathically hostile to the Ghosts and all their works?’

  Hella was uncertain. ‘We’re flight crew. We aren’t infantry, or covert operatives. We may not be right for the job.’

  ‘We’re Aleph Force,’ Hex said firmly. ‘In Aleph Force you do whatever it takes.’

  ‘Anyhow I don’t think there’s a choice,’ Jul said. ‘Us or nobody.’

  Hella asked, ‘So what do you think, pilot?’

  Hex looked into her soul. A journey into the very heart of Ghost territory - a mission that might turn the course of the war - how could she refuse? ‘I’m in.’

  Jul, Hella and Borno quickly concurred.

  ‘I’m proud of you,’ the Commodore said.

  The Ghost spun. ‘Humans!’

  Hex snapped, ‘All right, Ghost, let’s get on with it. Where are we going?’

  More data chattered into the Spear’s banks.

  III

  The Spear of Orion swept through space. The needleship moved from point to point through hyperdrive jumps, each too brief for a human eye to follow, so that the stars seemed to slide through the sky like lamp posts beside a road. For the crew the journey was a routine marvel.

  But Hex and her crew had come far from the outermost boundary of human space, farther than any human had travelled from Earth save for a handful of explorers. And every star they could see must host a Ghost emplacement: if humanity was turning the Galaxy green, then this rich chunk of it still gleamed Ghost-silver. But the Spear remained undisturbed.

  ‘It’s eerie,’ engineer Jul said. ‘Ghosts should be swarming all over us.’

  Hex said, ‘The Integumentary promised to make us invisible to the Ghosts’ sensors, and it’s keeping its word.’

  Jul, a practical engineer, snorted. ‘I’d feel a lot more reassured if I knew how.’

  Borno said, ‘What do you expect? Ghosts don’t give you anything.’ His pent-up rage, here in Ghost territory, was tangible.

  They sailed on in tense silence.

  Borno had been born between the stars. His ancestors, who called themselves ‘Engineers’, had fled Earth at the time of an alien occupation. With no place to land the refugees had ganged together their spacecraft and found ways to live between the stars, through trading, piloting, even a little mercenary soldiering.

  When the Third Expansion came, Borno’s Engineers had been one of a number of peripheral cultures recontacted by the Coalition, the new authority on Earth. But the Engineers had also forged tentative links with the Silver Ghosts, who were undergoing their own expansion out of the heart of the Galaxy. For a time the Engineers had profited from trade between two interstellar empires. They even welcomed small Ghost colonies on their amorphous islands of relic spacecraft and harnessed asteroids.

  But then Navy ships came spinning down to impose Coalition authority on the Engineers’ raft culture. There had been a strange period when autonomous Ghost enclaves had been granted room to live under the new regime: Silver Ghosts, living under Coalition authority. But the Ghosts had been taxed, marginalised and discriminated against until their position was untenable. Their maltreatment had led to a rescue mission from Ghost worlds - and that had led to one of the first military engagements of the long Ghost Wars, fought out over the Engineers’ fragile raft colony. Among the Engineers, many had died, and the rest had been dispersed to colonies deeper within Coalition space.

  All this was centuries ago. But Borno’s people had never forgotten who they were and where they had come from; they still called themselves ‘Engineers’. And in their minds it had been Ghost aggression that had resulted in the deaths of so many and the loss of an ancient homeland.

  Hex reflected that it would do no good to try to explain to Borno that it had been Coalition policy that had precipitated that defining crisis in the first place. And besides, Borno’s wrath was useful for the Coalition’s purposes. In a war that spanned the stars, he was not unique.

  ‘Heads up,’ Hella said. ‘I have a visual. Theta eighty-six, phi five.’

  Their destination was dead ahead.

  Hex saw a double star: a misty sphere that glowed a dull coal red while a pinpoint of electric blue trawled across its face.

  The Spear’s crew had had to find their way here by dead reckoning. This system didn’t show up in the Navy’s data banks. After fifteen centuries of the Third Expansion, the Commission for Historical Truth believed it had mapped every single one of the Galaxy’s hundreds of billions of stars, human-controlled or not - but it hadn’t mapped this one.

  Anomaly or not, somewhere in this unmapped system, the Integumentary had promised, the crew of the Spear would find the Black Ghost.

  Gunner Borno said hastily, ‘We’re crawling with Ghosts.’

  Hex checked her displays. All around her were Ghosts: their ships, their emplacements, their sensor stations and weapons platforms. The whole system was lik
e a vast fortress, defended to a depth of half a light year from that central double sun, with more monitoring stations and fast-response units even further out.

  ‘None of them are reacting,’ Jul said, sounding disbelieving. ‘Not one unit.’

  Hex said, ‘Then forget them. What are we looking at?’

  Jul said, ‘I’ve seen systems like this before. That blue thing is a neutron star, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ Hella said, ‘Actually a pulsar . . .’